2011 December 08

AP Breaking News: EPA Implicates Fracking in Groundwater Pollution at Wyoming Gas Field

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday for the first time that fracking — a controversial method of improving the productivity of oil and gas wells — may be to blame for causing groundwater pollution.

The draft finding could have a chilling effect in states trying to determine how to regulate the process.

The practice is called hydraulic fracturing and involves pumping pressurized water, sand and chemicals underground to open fissures and improve the flow of oil or gas to the surface.

The EPA’s found that compounds likely associated with fracking chemicals had been detected in the groundwater beneath a Wyoming community where residents say their well water reeks of chemicals.

Health officials advised them not to drink their water after the EPA found hydrocarbons in their wells.

This APNewsBreak is certainly a bombshell for an industry whose favorite (very dubious) talking point had been “we’ve never had one confirmed case of groundwater contamination.”

Of course, the important and influential NY Times series on natural gas fracking reported back in February that “The dangers to the environment and health are greater than previously understood.”

And the industry insiders who made up the DOE Fracking Panel warned last month of “a Real Risk of Serious Environmental Consequences” Absent Regulation:

It is the Subcommittee’s judgment that if action is not taken to reduce the environmental impact accompanying the very considerable expansion of shale gas production expected across the country – perhaps as many as 100,000 wells over the next several decades – there is a real risk of serious environmental consequences and a loss of public confidence that could delay or stop this activity.

The new EPA finding certainly supports that warning.

Here is more from the AP story on the implications of the preliminary finding:

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE OR COMMENT

The EPA announcement has major implications for the vast increase in gas drilling in the U.S. in recent years. Fracking has played a large role in opening up many reserves.

The industry has long contended that fracking is safe, but environmentalists and some residents who live near drilling sites say it has poisoned groundwater….

“EPA’s highest priority remains ensuring that Pavillion residents have access to safe drinking water,” said Jim Martin, EPA regional administrator in Denver. “We look forward to having these findings in the draft report informed by a transparent and public review process.”

The EPA also emphasized that the findings are specific to the Pavillion area. The agency said the fracking that occurred in Pavillion differed from fracking methods used elsewhere in regions with different geological characteristics.

The fracking occurred below the level of the drinking water aquifer and close to water wells, the EPA said. Elsewhere, drilling is more remote and fracking occurs much deeper than the level of groundwater that anybody would use.

This new EPA finding suggests that the agency is not making the mistake it made in the 1980s — see Exclusive: EPA Whistle-Blower Warns EPA Must Not Buckle to Industry Pressure and Greenwash Fracking Yet Again; 37-Year EPA Veteran:  Oil & Gas “Industry is Targeting the Times” Because its Fracking Series “Had an Unprecedented Role in Prodding EPA into Action.”

Related Posts:

• Natural Gas Bombshell: Switching From Coal to Gas Increases Warming for Decades, Has Minimal Benefit Even in 2100
• IEA’s “Golden Age of Gas Scenario” Leads to More Than 6°F Warming and Out-of-Control Climate Change.
• Water. Coal. Fracking. Texas. Sanity. One of These Words Does Not Belong.

Wind Wins: FERC Rules BPA Curtailment of Wind Power "Discriminatory"

In May 2011, after record snowmelt caused a surge in cheap hydropower for Bonneville Power Association (BPA), the utility made a bold move and decided that it would not accept wind power from wind farms with which it had signed power purchase agreements.

Small Island States At Durban: ‘Are You Asking Us To Accept Annihilation?’

Speaking at the Durban climate talks, Grenada environment minister and Alliance of Small Island States chair Karl Hood responded to a reporter who said climate scientists believe it is impossible to keep global warming below 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, which threatens the future inhabitability of the small island states of the world. Hood asked if that is a prescription for “annihilation“:

If they’re saying that 1.5 isn’t possible, are you asking us then to accept annihilation?

Watch it:

“I would love for these scientists to speak to the negotiators who are asking us to wait until 2020,” Hood said, making reference to consensus emerging by major polluters — including the European Union, China, the United States, and India — that stronger climate targets can’t go into effect before then. He concluded that “we have to increase the ambition, not decrease the ambition” as the scientific assessment of the greenhouse pollution threat grows more dire.

Climate scientists interviewed by ThinkProgress Green confirm that that they believe it is “impossible” to keep warming below 1.5°C, as there has already been nearly 1°C of warming, there is a multi-decadal delay in the atmospheric response to greenhouse pollution, and there’s no sign of the total global effort that would need to start immediately to have even a small chance of averting such a rise. If warming were somehow to be limited to 1.5°C, scientists found earlier this year, long-term sea level rise would be at least a foot — far better than the several meters possible under higher pollution.

“There are forces acting that are willing to chance the future of the islands because they are unwilling to take meaningful action to stop climate change,” climate scientist John Abraham told ThinkProgress Green, when asked for his candid opinion of Minister Hood’s question.

Yesterday, U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern said that he considers the 2°C goal codified by the G8 and the Cancun Accords to be a “guidepost,” not a “cap that you must meet.”

Read all of the ThinkProgress coverage of the Durban climate talks.

Solar Panels Are Cheaper Than We’ve Been Told

We keep hearing that solar will be cheaper than coal soon. But many of those studies significantly overestimate the costs of solar.

Utah Citizens Protesting Pollution Mic Check Utah Air Quality Board

Yesterday, the 99 Percent spoke out in favor of the planet and the air that all of us breathe. A group of activists from Occupy Salt Lake City and Peaceful Uprising attended a meeting of the Utah Division of Air Quality Board to ask that it take action to rein in air pollution and combat climate change.

The activists used a mic check to announce their grievances. “Division of Air Quality Board – we breath the poison you permit. We envision a cleaner community but you actively prevent it,” they said as they began their remarks. Watch it:

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the “disruption lasted just a few minutes. So, by the time a trio of security officers arrived at the Department of Environmental Quality public meeting room shortly after the protest most of the activists sat quietly in their audience seats.”

RIP, American High Speed Rail

How Obama's ill-conceived plans and united GOP opposition derailed the nation's shot at high speed rail.

Wind Power Produces Just 4-14% Emissions of Fossil Fuels, Even With Manufacturing & Decommissioning

What phase of the project produces the most emissions varies greatly between onshore and offshore projects.

Problems Continue in Michigan’s Most Polluted Zip Code

Detroit's 48217 neighborhood suffers from many forms of industrial pollution.

“Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America”

by Katherine O’Konski, in a Climate Science Watch cross-post

Shawn Lawrence Otto’s Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America is a fascinating look at the status of science in American society. Otto’s explanation of the climate change denial machine provides a compelling narrative that places the ‘controversy’ in the context of science’s slipping authority vis-a-vis political rhetoric and pseudoscience that passes for fact.  However, the book’s greatest merit lies in the analysis and resulting suggestions for positive reform – an effort that will require the contributions of politicians, scientists, the media, and the general public.

CSW caught up with Otto at the Union of Concerned Scientists Washington, DC, office for a discussion of Fool Me Twice last Thursday, December 1.

“Whenever people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”  Wise and famous words from Thomas Jefferson imply troubling questions as the opening line of Otto’s publication.  Are Americans well-informed on important problems facing society?  If we are not well-informed (and even if we are), are we capable of creating and implementing policies to deal with these problems responsibly?  Otto’s book is compelling as it addresses the conflicting opinions on issues that Americans must sort through on a daily basis.

Debates over climate change are just the beginning, yet it is exemplary in that preconceived ideologies and political rhetoric are elevated to the point where they can confront peer-reviewed scientific findings.  And how has this happened? Otto outlines American society’s tumultuous relationship with scientific inquiry since the days of the founding fathers, coming to the conclusion that science has been gradually forced out of political discussion.  “American democracy relies on a plurality of voices representing economic, scientific, and religious perspectives to arrive at balanced public policy,” he maintains. “With the voice of science going silent in our political dialogue, America no longer has that plurality.”

Science has been ghettoized and pushed aside, Otto maintains, absent from policy debates despite the fact that scientific issues have such huge and lasting impacts on American lives. The cause of this unfortunate reality is attributed to an amalgamation of factors, the most prominent of which seem to be the pervasiveness of campaigns, motivated by monetary investment or a conflicting religious ideology, to subvert the value society places on scientific information.  The media’s tendency to seek out conflicting opinions, even opinions that are not scientifically legitimate; scientists’ tendency to operate as though their respective fields are not political; and the general public’s tendency to ignore the importance of science education, all play a part.

Science is political

Though science is not usually thought of as ‘political’, Otto asserts that “science pushes the boundaries of knowledge … pushes us to constantly redefine our ethics and morality, and that is always political.”  He argues that there is a need for scientists to use their expertise and authority to push for policy prescriptions to our societal challenges.  Without their influence, credibility, and authority, there is more room for pseudoscience and vested interests to exert their power, influencing policy in ways that may not be best for the American people as a whole.

But it is no wonder that scientists shy away from delving any further into the political sphere – take, for example, Senator James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), who called for the prosecution of respected climate scientists by the Justice Department, attacking the integrity and character of these scientists because his political ideology does not match their findings.  (See what CSW has to say on this matter here).

However, without the scientific community providing expertise and authority in policy prescriptions, anti-science campaigns, driven by conflicts of values (as in evolution) to conflicts of investment and wealth (as in climate change) subvert real scientific knowledge, prevent the implementation of responsible policy, and put the future of our country in jeopardy.

To this end, Otto provides an excellent summary of American political controversy on climate change, and our inability to take any corrective action despite knowledge of the problem since Jim Hansen’s 1988 congressional testimony bringing attention to the matter.  We note that Otto references CSW director Rick Piltz’s whistleblower action in 2005 in his first chapter, as part of a concise discussion on anti-science in the Presidential sphere.  “Bush public relations appointees were muzzling scientists at other agencies, or altering scientific information in official agency reports to fit a preconceived ideological agenda,” Otto reports, with reference to a New York Times article detailing the actions of an oil industry lobbyist in the White House environmental office to manipulate goverernment climate research communication.

Beyond this reference, Otto provides a detailed chapter on the climate change denial machine, the contents of which CSW readers will find familiar.  Again, we are presented with the implications of the power of an industry with vested interests to manipulate public discourse on a topic, and push policy in a desired direction despite clear scientific evidence that these actions are neither sustainable nor in the long term public interest.  Scientists didn’t stand a chance.

Otto walks us through the “oft repeated five prong propaganda strategy of cloaking rhetorical arguments in scientific legitimacy in order to affect a desired policy objective.”  The consequences and ‘scandals’ resulting from these attacks are listed in a lengthy but informative narrative, united by the sobering fact that these tactics have so far successfully prevented any substantial federal action to address climate change. Otto explains Bush’s failure to sign the Kyoto Protocol, ‘Climategate’, Foxgate and the (minor) errors found in the IPCC reports, and Attorney General Ken Cucinelli’s crusade against climate scientist Michael Mann as defrauding taxpayers.  Otto then takes us through the failure of cap-and-trade as an originally Republican idea that is now ridiculed as experimenting with the economy, and the rise of proposals for geoengineering solutions such as sulfur aerosol injections – an idea that “is easily the riskiest suggestion in the history of human civilization,” which resembles “taking up a crack habit.”

Otto’s points out in this chapter that the controversy over climate change is exacerbated by the inadequacy of media coverage as an intermediary between scientists and the general public. CSW has long advocated for the need for objectivity (i.e., regard for empirical evidence), but not for neutrality (e.g., fake ‘balance’ of conflicting views without regard for evaluating the merits) in press coverage of science-related stores.  Indeed, Otto maintains that “Americans find themselves in an absurd and dangerous position: in a time when the majority of the world’s leading country’s largest challenges revolve around science, few reporters are covering them from a scientific angle.”

To restore science to a place in the American political realm, Otto contends that citizens must be better informed; that the media must work to connect the public, scientists, and policymakers in an objective, nonpartisan manner.  Scientific education must be improved. And, as he did during the 2008 presidential campaign, Otto advocates for holding a televised ‘science debate’ between the two presidential candidates in the 2012 election.  That could be a most interesting and illuminating event.  It would be an opportunity to push President Obama to engage in some forthright discussion of climate science before a national audience, which he has appeared most reluctant to do, and to go toe-to-toe with whatever ‘skeptic’ the Republicans put up against him.

If Americans are not well-enough informed to successfully tackle issues like climate change, Otto contends that seeing political leaders directly address the issues will foster greater public interest in the topics, help Americans distinguish scientific finding from rhetoric, and encourage our children to devote their education to the subject. “By putting science in its rightful place as an ongoing part of the policy discussion of the nation, parents can become educated in the context in which they are used to taking in information – policy decisions that affect their lives.”

CSW also believes that increasing scientific literacy is a necessary component to solving the political indecision surrounding action on climate change, and will contribute equally positively to the broad array of science-based dilemmas that face our society.  Getting science-based issues to the forefront with a televised debate is a simple yet powerful tool to encourage scientific literacy.  It could contribute to increased citizen involvement and advocacy for the creation of a comprehensive US policy on climate change.

At the conclusion of the book Otto asks, “will we take up the mantle of freedom and leadership that science gave us — the commitment to knowledge over the assertions of ‘but faith or opinion’ that led us to the disquieting idea of equality that is the foundation of our democracy?”  A worthy challenge.

– by Katherine O’Konski, in a Climate Science Watch cross-post

Human Transit vs My Kind Of Transit: Two Views of What Makes Transit Work, and Why (Book Review)

Two very different views of public transit, from two authors that will be on Bookhugger this afternoon

First Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Deployed in Atlantic Ocean

The turbine, developed by Principle Power, was assembled on land and then towed over 200 miles out into open water.

Wind Energy Outlook 2012: An Uncertain Forecast

Onshore wind power is in a good place, at least through the end of 2012. Wind power has made up 35 percent of all new generating capacity added to the U.S. grid since 2007. That's twice what coal and nuclear combined have added in the last five years, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). And as U.S. developers take advantage of federal tax credits for renewables through the end of 2012, it's possible that 2012 may result in the largest number of wind projects completed in one year.